Going Under

by Lauren Dane

  Molly didn’t touch the paper but she saw the figures on the first page. Enough money to get her through the next year or so. Help her start her own firm, or relocate. Still, it was money to shut her up after they cast her out.

  But the walls were down and all she felt was anger. No, it was past anger now. She was into rage territory and she was seeing things very clearly.

  “You should send these to my attorney. He’ll be in touch later this morning.” She stood, brushing her skirt to rid herself of the wrinkles. She’d never let them know how hurt she was. She was better than every single person in that room. And she’d never let them forget it.

  Aaron attempted a charming frown. “You can’t mean to fight this. It’ll only bring more negative attention to the firm.”

  He was quite fortunate she didn’t go with her instinct to slap his face for that. “You’re truly going to sit there—in a chair I chose—and tell me I should accept your bigotry like a good little second-class citizen to save you embarrassment? You’re out of your mind.”

  “Be reasonable, Molly. You built this, as you’ve said. Would you really tear it down? For what?”

  “For what?” She blinked at him, so incredulous it was a wonder she didn’t start laughing hysterically. She felt her power deep in her belly and panicked for a moment that she’d do something she didn’t plan. That would be very bad.

  So, instead of going all Carrie on them and setting the place on fire, she took a deep breath and centered herself, just as Rosa had taught her all those years ago. Once she’d gotten her power under control again, she squared her shoulders and glared. “I’m defending myself against a completely unwarranted attack on my person. And for what? Because I’m a witch? What if I had brown skin? Or my religion was different? That’s not acceptable so why should this be? And why on earth would I stand for it? Do you think I built this place so small-minded hatemongers could simply shove me out and reap my profits? You have another think coming if you believe I’ll simply pack my office up and go quietly.”

  She’d been utterly and completely numb for weeks. Now she was awake and they’d better run.

  The bitterness and hate rolled off Angelica in waves. “You can’t win and you know it. Now that we know about you and your kind, we’ll make sure you can’t.”

  Molly smiled at Angelica and then over at Aaron. “See? Just business.”

  Molly wouldn’t give anyone the pleasure of rushing away. She turned her back on that sorry trio and walked to her office on shaky legs.

  Her assistant was waiting for her there, her features expectant, then falling when she caught sight of Molly’s demeanor.

  “Is it true? Oh my god, it is.” Paige threw her hands up as she began to mutter and pace. “Those assholes!”

  Well, this was at least better than the last reception she got so Molly eased into her chair to watch her assistant of five years pace and bitch about the other partners.

  Molly needed to be doing something. Anything. She grabbed her phone. “I need to call Jim. Keep the bad words to a minimum.” Paige snorted as Molly dialed her attorney’s office and was put right though.

  She laid the entire story out for him as Paige plopped into a nearby chair and gawked.

  He asked a few questions as they went and when it was all over he sighed. “You’re the third client this month who’s been terminated for their status.”

  She knew it had been happening nationwide to lots of Others. Rosa, her foster mother, still reeling from the death of a child and her husband, had been asked to retire early from her job teaching middle school. Though asked was a nice term for the pressure they laid on her to get out. Molly’s biological mother, a human, had been harassed by groups of students under the flag of PURITY. PURITY, who proclaimed to be about love and safety all while digging through trash and turning people’s lives upside down by outing them, they way they had with Molly. They even had a television show and a nationally syndicated column called Know Your Enemy where they published lists of names of Others. They may as well be wearing white sheets; it was the same thing.

  “This is a gray area, but I’m working on it with some other civil rights attorneys across the country. I’ll get something to Aaron by day’s end. Do you . . . are you sure you even want to stay?”

  “How can I let them get away with this? If I walk away, I’m saying it’s all right!” She knew that she didn’t want to work with any of these people ever again. But there were principles in play here. And this was her business, damn it.

  “I can get more money out of them to get you out the door. I can probably work it so they have to use a different name. As part of your separation agreement. Even if I win, and I don’t know if I can, do you want to be there with them?” Jim paused, she knew, looking for the right words. “I’m sorry. You’ve suffered a lot over the last several weeks. I just want you to know that no matter your choice here, I’m on your side.”

  She heaved a sigh and fought back nausea. She wanted to go home and hide under the covers. Wanted to pretend the sickness of heart and soul hadn’t beaten her down.

  “Take some time. You don’t have to make a decision right this moment.”

  “Time.” She snorted. “Why should I have to? It’s unacceptable. They’re trying to push me out for nothing, acting like I’ve committed a crime or something.”

  “You haven’t done anything wrong, Molly. You know it and so do they. I’ll fight for you as hard as I can. But you also know you’re not going to have anything to do but ruminate over this until you make yourself sick. Just get out of there a while and make it about yourself. Let me do the obsessing, okay? It’s my job.”

  Molly blinked back tears of frustration. “I don’t have much to do here today. My clients, the biggest ones, have fired me.”

  That cut deep. Some of them had cloaked it in a bunch of talk about how they couldn’t afford the controversy in this economic and political climate. This after she’d saved them more than once. These were people who she’d had dinner with, had spent time in their homes.

  “Go home. I’ll have something messengered over to your place in an hour or so. I’ll lay out all your options and you can think them over. I’ll keep you updated.”

  She hung up and looked to Paige, whose anger soothed some of Molly’s agitation.

  “This is dumb. They can’t do this. Who freaking cares if you’re a witch or not? What does it have to do with how you do your job?”

  Molly picked up an award statuette. She’d won it only three months before. Three months before when the world was different. She slid it into the large tote next to her desk.

  “Fair or not, it’s happening all over the place.” She grabbed some of the photographs from the credenza. A shot of Molly with her foster family, her magickal family, she supposed, at her college graduation. One of her with her biological mother and her maternal grandparents when she’d accepted an award a few years back. Memories of a different world. She placed them in the tote.

  “Are you really going to let them do this? None of these dicks would even have a place to work if it weren’t for you.”

  “It makes me sad to think they’re going to drive this firm into the ground. All for what? My witch cooties? They can’t catch it, for heaven’s sake.”

  “It’s Angelica. She’s been agitating everyone with every single newspaper article and Internet thing she can find, true or not. Like when your sister-in-law sends you mass forwards filled with things a simple visit to snopes.com could tell her were fakes.”

  “I’m sure she’s a card-carrying member of PURITY. But that doesn’t matter. Aaron is with her. As is Paul. That’s three of four partners.” She realized they could, and would, be able to terminate her contract. The knowledge was awful and unbearably sad. A whole part of her life was being taken away from her.

  Sad or not, she sure wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Or a financial settlement that was far more representative of her value to the firm. She’d start over if she
had to, but she’d do it with the money she earned. And they’d have to change the firm’s name.

  Still, Paige wasn’t as fortunate to have all the options Molly did. “Look, I can probably work on Aaron’s sense of duty and get you on with one of the others. We approved a new-hire slot just a few weeks ago. You’re terrific and they’ll need you after I leave.”

  “You’re not going to let them run you out of town like a criminal, Molly. I’m not going to let you. Hell, you can get your stakes back and start a new firm, this one working for Others. I’ll happily work for you there.”

  Molly paused, resting her hip on the desk and thought about that idea.

  “Oh, girl. I can see you’re taking that seriously.” Paige sat nearby. “Want me to take some notes? Call some people? We can work out of your place for a while until we get a new office.”

  She smiled at Paige, who was also six months pregnant and couldn’t afford to jump ship and risk losing her insurance and the healthy retirement plan she’d begun to build.

  “Even if I did that, you’re not in any position to up and leave this job. You need the benefits. For the baby and for Mark too.” Paige’s husband had been laid off from his job four months before and had been looking for a new one ever since. He had some health problems, which made any risky moves by Paige even more precarious.

  “You can’t possibly think I’d choose this place without you in it. After the way they’re dumping you? My parents raised me right.”

  “Yes, they did. And I appreciate the solidarity. More than you can know. But, Paige, you’re pregnant. Your husband is unemployed. I can’t offer you health care, even if I did start a new firm. Hang on until you have the baby and you’ve used your leave and all that stuff. By then, well, at the very least I can get you on somewhere else.”

  Pragmatism was something she couldn’t get around. Molly shrugged. “It isn’t right. Not at all. I’m going to fight it, but in the end, I don’t think it’s going to make a difference. Oh, I’ll get more money from them probably, but they won’t have to keep me. And they won’t. Right now, all across the country Others are in a gray area legally. And there are plenty of people who will use that.”

  Paige’s pretty face fell as she accepted it. “This is dumb. I hate them.”

  Molly laughed without humor. “Yeah, me too. Now, I’m going to take some of this stuff home. But before that, let’s go to a late breakfast. You have my permission to take the rest of the day off.”

  * * *

  WHEN she and Paige came around the corner, Aaron was waiting for her at the elevators.

  “You going to check my bag to make sure I’m not stealing pens?”

  “Give me a break, Mol.”

  “Don’t.” She held her hand up. “You don’t get to call me that. I’m leaving for the day. I have the vacation for it. But I’m not quitting, or saying I’m going on sabbatical. That’s not going to happen.”

  “Why don’t you and I go to lunch and talk? Away from here.”

  The audacity! “If you really wanted that, you wouldn’t have ambushed me here. You’d have spoken to me in advance.”

  “It was in the conjecture stage. And then Bright and Cleen called. I’m sorry.” His gaze skated to Paige, hindered by her presence to say anything else.

  Good.

  The elevator dinged and the doors slid open. She moved to walk past and he grabbed her arm. “Molly, please. Be reasonable. You can’t just end a ten-year friendship. I had to make a difficult choice. You should understand that.”

  “I don’t understand it at all. I don’t understand you and I will grieve, along with a boatload of other things, that you cared so little about our friendship and this firm that you’d give in to this absurd demand. It’s terrorism, Aaron, and you know it. You do this for them and what will they ask next? Who else might not be . . . enough for them? Hm? Talk about slippery slopes.”

  She yanked her arm back.

  “My attorney will be contacting you by day’s end.” She let the doors slide closed.

  Chapter 2

  “I got fired today.”

  Molly hung her coat up and turned to her mother, who stood at the table, pouring a glass of wine.

  Eliza’s eyes went wide and then narrowed dangerously. “What?”

  “Partners’ meeting. They ambushed me before I even had a sip of my coffee. I go in and they tell me I’ve violated my agreement by not disclosing my nationality and for bringing negative attention. Risking clients.”

  Eliza held out the glass. “You need this more than I do.”

  Molly took several bracing sips.

  Her mother waited until she’d done so before she continued. “Tell me the rest.”

  Eliza Ryan was the strongest person Molly had ever met. Her mother was her greatest hero and role model.

  “Well, you know PURITY outed me two days ago. Apparently this morning Bright and Cleen called. Said they’d dump the firm if they didn’t dump me. I’m told I’m an abomination.”

  Eliza’s brow rose. “I can guess who said that. Does Angelica still have a stick wedged up her butt? Puritans, the whole lot of them. Oh, you were just fine to get them out of trouble a month ago. But now?” Her mother sniffed before gulping her own wine.

  “Not everyone is acting that way. Paige volunteered to quit and follow me to a new firm if I started it. She threatened to quit anyway. Don’t worry, I told her not to. She’s pregnant and she needs the benefits. It wouldn’t make a difference to them if she quit and it would only hurt her. Plus the Troys—you know my neighbors with the house across the street? Anyway, they came over when I got home today. With a big basket of baked goods. She hugged me and said it would be all right.”

  With that, the tears came. Because it wouldn’t be.

  Eliza put her glass down and moved to gather Molly up into her arms. “Let it all go. This isn’t right. It’s not fair and it’s not even American, for heaven’s sake.”

  “I d-don’t think things are going to be all right. Everything is different. Anthony is dead. Emma is dead. The guy who did my yard? Turns out he was a shifter. He’s dead too. I don’t think I’ll be able to stave off being fired. My firm. I built that firm, damn it.” Anthony Falco had been a father to her, Emma her sibling in everything but blood and she missed each one of them every damned day.

  Her mother rubbed a palm up and down her back. Up and down, over and over, just like she did when Molly got sick or when she got dumped.

  “I’m not dead. Nana Ryan isn’t dead. Rosa isn’t and she needs you now more than ever. We all need you, Molly. If you can’t stay at the firm, you’ll do something else. It’s who you are. I’ll help you in any way I can.”

  “You have your own problems.”

  Her mother snorted. “Thank goodness for tenure. The rest of the faculty—for the most part anyway—are supporting me. I’ll get through this. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Of course I worry about you! This is happening to you because of me.” Her mother was being persecuted for no other reason than being a parent to an Other. It was absurd and horrible and Molly felt responsible.

  Her mother stepped back, holding Molly at arm’s length. “No. This is happening because people are scared. And because people with no values are using that fear to whip them up into this frenzy that’s wrecking everything. You are the best thing I’ve ever done. I won’t let a bunch of small-minded bigots make you think anything else.”

  Her phone buzzed in her pocket. The song told her it was Rosa so Molly mopped up her face and answered.

  “Hiya, Mom.” Rosa Falco had come into Molly’s life when she was thirteen. She’d been the one to teach Molly about the other side of her heritage. The magickal side. The Falco family had become hers too. So much so that she’d been calling Rosa Mom since she was fifteen.

  Together with Eliza, they’d guided her, loved her and supported her. That her biological mother shared her daughter without any apparent jealousy was a testament to Eliza’s strength an
d love. And a powerful reminder that no matter how much Molly had lost, she still had them.

  “Turn on the television.” Rosa’s voice held a lot of anger.

  “What? What’s going on?” Molly found the remote and turned the television on as requested.

  “Watch and call me back.”

  “Okay.”

  She sat, her mother at her side.

  On the screen, Carlo Powers, the leader of PURITY, sat across from a news anchor, smiling. That smile made Molly curl her lip. A smiling fascist was still a fascist.

  “Well yes, Bridget. We love everyone of course. But that doesn’t mean we have to tolerate their behavior, or let them threaten our families.”

  “Heard that one before,” her mother muttered.

  “A few million times.” Eliza reached out to take Molly’s hand.

  Bridget Patterson, the local network anchor, frowned. “Mr. Powers, there are those who say your group’s weekly outing of different paranormals is only adding to the increase in violence in communities across the country. They say outing is dangerous for those you’ve exposed. Others have been fired as a result of your show. Attacked in some cases. How do you respond to that?”

  He cocked his head, the mean shining in his eyes briefly. “These paranormals are abominations. They’ve lived among us for all this time secretly. They can’t be trusted. Can you blame decent Americans for wanting to defend themselves against that?”

  Molly’s stomach heaved.

  “This man is dangerous, Molly.”

  “No shit. Um, no crap.” She grimaced. “Sorry.”

  “You get to use all the curse words for this sorry excuse for a human being. I’ll write you a note.”

  On the television, Bridget soldiered on. “Is that what you call it? Defense? Yesterday in Kentucky a couple’s store was burned to the ground. They lived above it and the doors were blocked from the outside so they couldn’t get out. They managed to escape only because they jumped from a second-story window.”